Uzbekistan

The Armed Forces

The president of Uzbekistan is the commander in chief of the armed
forces, and he has authority to appoint and dismiss all senior commanders.
The minister of defense and the chief of staff have operational and
administrative control. Since early 1992, President Karimov has exercised
his supreme authority in making appointments and in the application of
military power. The staff structure of the armed forces retains the
configuration of the Turkestan Military District. The structure includes
an Operational and Mobilization Organization Directorate and departments
of intelligence, signals, transport, CIS affairs, aviation, air defense,
and missile troops and artillery. In 1996 total military strength was
estimated at about 25,000. The armed forces are divided into four main
components: ground defense forces, air force, air defense, and national
guard.

Army

The ground defense forces, largest of the four branches, numbered 20,400
troops in 1996, of which about 30 percent were professional soldiers
serving by contract and the remainder were conscripts. The forces are
divided into an army corps of three motorized rifle brigades, one tank
regiment, one engineer brigade, one artillery brigade, two artillery
regiments, one airborne brigade, and aviation, logistics, and
communications support units. The ground forces' primary mission is to
conduct rapid-reaction operations in cooperation with other branches.
Combined headquarters are at Tashkent; the headquarters of the 360th Motor
Rifle Division is at Termiz, and that of the Airmobile Division is at
Farghona. (Although the force structure provides for no division-level
units, they are designated as such for the purpose of assigning
headquarters.)

Air Force and Air Defense

A treaty signed in March 1994 by Russia and Uzbekistan defines the terms
of Russian assistance in training, allocation of air fields,
communications, and information on air space and air defense
installations. In 1995 almost all personnel in Uzbekistan's air force were
ethnic Russians. The Chirchiq Fighter Bomber Regiment, taken over in the
initial phase of nationalization of former Soviet installations, has since
been scaled down by eliminating older aircraft, with the goal of reaching
a force of 100 fixed-wing aircraft and thirty-two armed helicopters.
According to the Soviet structure still in place, separate air and air
defense forces operate in support of ground forces; air force doctrine
conforms with Soviet doctrine. Some thirteen air bases are active.

In 1994 Uzbekistan's inventory of aircraft was still in the process of
reduction to meet treaty requirements. At that stage, the air force was
reported to have two types of interceptor jet, twenty of the outmoded
MiG-21 and thirty of the more sophisticated MiG-29. For close air support,
forty MiG-27s (foundation of the Chirchiq regiment) and ten Su-17Ms were
operational. Twenty An-2 light transport planes, six An-12BP transports,
and ten An-26 transports made up the air force's transport fleet. Training
aircraft included twenty L-39C advanced trainers and an unknown number of
Yak-52 basic trainers. Six Mi-8P/T transport helicopters were available.
The air defense system consisted of twenty operational Nudelman 9K31
low-altitude surface-to-air missiles, which in 1994 were controlled by two
Russian air defense regiments deployed along the Afghan border.

National Guard

The National Guard was created immediately after independence (August
1991) as an internal security force under the direct command of the
president, to replace the Soviet Internal Troops that had provided
internal security until that time. Although plans called for a force of
1,000 troops including a ceremonial guard company, a special purpose
detachment, and a motorized rifle regiment, reports indicate that only one
battalion of the motorized rifle regiment had been formed in 1994. The
National Guard forces in Tashkent, thought to number about 700, moved
under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Internal Security in 1994.

Border Guards

The Uzbekistan Border Troop Command was established in March 1992, on
the basis of the former Soviet Central Asian Border Troops District. In
1994 the Frontier Guard, as it is also called, came under the control of
the Ministry of Internal Security. The force, comprising about 1,000
troops in 1996, is under the command of a deputy chairman of the National
Security Committee, which formerly was the Uzbekistan Committee for State
Security (KGB). The Frontier Guard works closely with the Russian Border
Troops Command under the terms of a 1992 agreement that provides for
Russian training of all Uzbekistani border troops and joint control of the
Afghan border.

Military Training

Three major Soviet-built training facilities are the foundation of the
military training program. The General Weapons Command Academy in Tashkent
trains noncommissioned officers (NCOs); the Military Driving Academy in
Samarqand is a transport school; and the Chirchiq Tank School trains armor
units. In 1993 all three schools were stripped of the Soviet-style
honorific names they bore during the Soviet period. Plans call for
expansion of the three schools. Bilateral agreements with Russia and
Turkey also provide for training of Uzbekistani troops in those countries.
For aircraft training, Uzbekistan retains some Aero L-39C Albatross
turbofan trainers and piston-engine Yak-52 basic trainers that had been
used by the Soviet-era air force reserves.